History
The worldwide introduction of the Legacy was achieved in 1990. Subaru had earned a reputation of building vehicles that were regarded as "quirky" and other Asian manufacturers were bringing more upscale and conventional appearing models to the market. The Legacy appeared at the same time as the USA introduction of Lexus and Infiniti and five years after Acura, and it was interpreted by some as Subaru's attempt at participating in the emerging imported luxury car market. However, Subaru didn't have a V6 or V8 engine. The Legacy was more aerodynamic than previously built products, with soft edges and a more coherent appearance. The sedan has a break in the beltline where it drops down from the windshield to the front door glass, and then juts up from the rear door glass to the rear window, and the beltline is interrupted as it transitions down to the rear window on the wagon. The beltline treatment was used again on the SVX when it was introduced in 1992.
The Legacy broke with many Subaru traditions, such as no longer locating the spare tire in the engine compartment, behind the engine and above the transmission, a tradition started with the 1966 Subaru 1000, a method also used in the Citroën GS. The Legacy was also the second Subaru to use wheels with five lug nuts instead of four to better cope with the increased horsepower and torque from the powertrain. The Legacy was an all-new model, and was slotted at the top in Subaru's model range, joining the Leone, the Subaru XT coupe, Subaru Justy sub-compact, and the Subaru Rex and Subaru Sambar kei cars in Japan.
The Subaru star badge used since the introduction of the 360 was modified, with a more conventional and stylized appearance, in comparison to versions used on previous vehicles.
The Legacy began with a 5-door wagon or 4-door sedan body styles with FWD and an optional full-time AWD package, and was introduced in the United States, UK, Germany, the Benelux region of Northern Europe, Argentina, Chile, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. The car was built with many luxury and technological advancements normally found on more expensive vehicles as standard equipment, such as power windows, central locking, fuel injection, air conditioning, vehicle speed sensitive, variable effort, power assist rack-and-pinion steering, alloy wheels, 4-wheel independent suspension (MacPherson struts in front and Chapman struts for the back) with both negative scrub and anti-dive and squat geometery, anti-sway bars front and rear, and 4-wheel disc brakes. Items that were optional that didn't make the vehicle too expensive were 4-channel ABS, licensed from Bosch and air suspension height control, which lowered the vehicle at speeds above 50 mph (80.5 km/h), and also allowed the driver to increase the vehicles ground clearance for off-road conditions. The air suspension was inspired by various manufacturers who used Hydropneumatic suspension, such as Citroen, Honda, and Mercedes-Benz.
On vehicles equipped with power central locking, the feature is activated from the inside drivers door lock switch only, by pushing the rocker switch to lock or unlock all doors. There is no label on any of the doors that suggest the door lock function is electric. Other doors can be locked or unlocked individually by pushing the respective door lock rocker switch, but it will not lock or unlock the other doors. The outside key door lock can unlock the drivers door only by turning the key partially, or with a complete turn to the left to unlock all doors.
According to a translation of the Japanese Wikipedia article on the Subaru Legacy, the Aomori Prefecture and Ibaraki Prefecture police departments have used the Legacy Turbo for patrol cars since the car was introduced and continue to do so. Also mentioned in this translation was an article stating that when Fuji Heavy Industries began to develop the Legacy during Japan's "bubble economy", the Subaru division was facing financial pressure to improve sales in larger car segments, due to market successes from other Asian competitors and that they used an internal project code of "44B" to refer to the Legacy.
Read more about this topic: Subaru Legacy (first Generation)
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